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2015 April

Washington, D.C., April 13, 2015 – Fred Campbell, Director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, released the following statement regarding the official publication of the Federal Communications Commission order on net neutrality in the Federal Register, which starts the clock on filings for judicial review:

“The irony of the decision to reclassify the Internet as the telephone network is that it dramatically weakened the legal case for regulations to protect the open Internet. The FCC’s rationale for reclassification is a tour de force of fallacious reasoning and novel theories that will have judges scratching their heads.

The agency faces an uphill battle in defending its legal case given its consistent refusal to provide the public with an opportunity to comment on its novel theories compounded by unusual White House political involvement throughout the agency’s regulatory deliberations.

Even if the FCC succeeds in convincing a panel of judges that the agency has authority to equate the Internet with the telephone network, it will have difficulty overcoming constitutional objections. The reclassification order’s truncated First Amendment analysis is particularly weak and unlikely to survive appellate review.”

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an executive branch agency within the Department of Commerce, sparked controversy last year when it announced its intent to transition its oversight of Internet domain names to “the global multistakeholder community.” The controversy is now over. The NTIA no longer has authority to relinquish U.S. control over the Internet domain name system. Though few seem to have realized it, the FCC assumed plenary jurisdiction over Internet numbering in its 2015 net neutrality order reclassifying the broadband Internet as telecommunications (Reclassification Order). Read More